Vienna Wine & Opera

Following the success of our Vienna Opera and Wine Tour in 2009 we are very excited to repeat this tour which in 2010 has a superb line up of Operas with exceptional casts. In April La Sonnambula featured the Peruvian Tenor Florez, then Verdi’s Rigoletto and finishing with Bellini’s I Puritani starring the memorable Anna Netrebko.

We have been visiting Vienna and the vineyards of Austria on wine tours for many years and have picked out a couple of the high-lights to feature on this trip. We have a day in the Danube vineyards of the Wachau and Kamptal with lunch at Schloss Gobelsberg. The dry Riesling of the Wachau, Kremstal and Kamptal are rated by many as the best in the world. Our day out to Neusiedlersee features a tasting-lunch with the exuberant Willi Opitz, one of the world’s greatest sweet winemakers. There will also be an optional visit and lunch at one of the top Vienna wine estate such as Weingut Christ or Weingut Wieninger. Austria produces some of the highest quality wines in Europe, superb dry whites, surprisingly good reds and “off the planet” sweeties. The renaissance of Austrian wine is in full swing. The dark age is a long time behind it and we are now in the era of masterpieces and inspiration. On this tour we’ll meet a couple of the great winemakers who are driving Austria forwards, taste awesome wines and receive wonderful hospitality.

The Vienna Staatsoper opened in 1869 as a key part of the development ordered by Emperor Franz-Joseph I involving the demolition of Vienna’s medieval walls and replacing these with a wide boulevard, the ‘Opern ring’. The Staatsoper is on the site of the old Opera house dating back to the early 1700s and was built in a grand neo-Renaissance style with an arched loggia, great stairways and many reception rooms. It was virtually completely rebuilt after World War2 having been severely damaged. The directors have included Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Herbert von Karajan, and for many years Ioan Holender. It is notoriously difficult to get tickets to the Staatsoper and at each performance we have only a small allocation of tickets.

The amazing hospitality of the people, the sophistication of the cuisine, the variety and high quality of the wines, as well as the intense dedication of the wine makers we have chosen to visit PLUS superb operas, makes this tour, which only has 14 places, a must. No wonder Tim Clarke has chosen to escort it personally!

Cast Lists for April Opera’s

La Sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini

The first evenings performance is La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker). The Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini achieved international fame with his 1831 opera La Sonnambula, when it was performed in Milan for the first time in 1831. The opera is set in Switzerland in the early 19th Century and tells how the sleepwalking of the young heroine, Amina, causes a series of misunderstandings and near-disasters. The cast includes the impressive young Juan Diego Florez.

Juan Diego Florez

This Peruvian tenor is only 37 years old and here in Vienna will be singing the same role as his 2008 Decca recording which was made with conductor Alessandro de Marchi.

Rigoletto by Verdi

Verdi was commissioned to write Rigoletto by La Fenice opera house in Venice in 1850, and despite many rewrites to avoid the censorship of the time, eventually set this opera in Mantova in the 1500’s. The Opera recounts the tale of the amorous Duke, his hunchback jester, Rigoletto and his daughter Gilda. Added into the plot is the curse of the Nobleman Monterone, who curses the Duke for seducing his daughter. It is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi’s middle-to-late career and of course features the superb La Donna e Mobile.

Cast

The role of Gilda will sung by Italian Soprano Patrizia Ciofi, who has performed this role several times including at London Covent Garden. She is joined by tenor Giuseppe Gipali and the Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who won Cardiff Singer of the World in 1989. His rise has been meteoric and for with good reason. He’s been compared with the presence of Rudolph Nureyev; he’s been called dashing and a heart throb amd he made the list of People Magazine’s ‘50 Most Beautiful People’ as well as having a stunning voice.

I Puritani by Vincenzo Bellini

Bellini’s I Puritani (The Puritans) is set in Plymouth during the English Civil War of the 1640’s. It tells the story of Lord Walton’s daughter Elvira and how the warring factions of the Roundheads and The Cavaliers have disastrous results due to the allegiance of her beloved and Elvira is beset by madness. This example of Belcanto opera features the beautiful aira “Vien Deletto” sung by Elvira.

Anna Netrebko

The Cindarella of the Opera world… the floor cleaner at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre who rose to become an international superstar… the girl from Krasnodar. Anna has been compared to Callas, a suggestion she rejects utterly. Like Callas she had a difficult start to her career and she attracts attention, both envy and adulation. Her stage presence is enormous, her vitality and beauty making her sort of ‘visual magnet’. Her voice, quite unlike Callas, is a ‘natural’ rich, sumptuous style; both pure and resonant. Obviously she carries off the great moments superbly but another part of the secret of her success is how well her voice melds with that of a great tenor. Duets she is in can touch perfection.

She has been triumphant in many roles: Gilda in Rigoletto (at Covent Garden), Manon (now on DVD), Elvira in Puritani, Lucia (Lucia di Lammamoor) and most of all, Violetta in Traviata. It was really her Violetta at the Salzberg Festival in 2005 that catapulted her to international superstardom. Her recent appearance last year at Covent Garden in La Traviata, though marred by a chest infection, was thrilling. Although she has delivered the greatest Traviata of her generation (in several different productions), it is very possible that we have not seen the best yet. Visit Anna’s website: www.annanetrebko.com

See Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon perform the Brindisi from the famous Salzberg staging of La Traviata on You Tube. Click here (Available on DVD from Deutche Grammophon). She is joined by the German bass Christof Fischesser and Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien who is recognised as one of the leading baritones today. He is known for his handsome voice, incisive musicianship and captivating stage presence and he performs regularly at the Metropolitan Opera.

Extend your stay

Please call the office to discuss options, if you prefer a few more nights in Vienna or perhaps Salzburg.